Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
27 August 2019 Vol 4 No 18 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2019
From the Editor
Portia Priegert
My inbox is often swamped with submission calls, but this one caught my eye. Its title, printed in large black letters, read: "Displacement."
Issued by the Eastside Culture Crawl for a November show spread over several venues, it asked for work by Vancouver artists “who have been evicted, are currently being evicted or have found ways to survive displacement.”
The ability to frame a large group show around this theme is a sad commentary indeed on the trickle-down mess bequeathed by global capitalism.
Soaring rents, reno-victions, demolitions for condominium developments and all other manner of mayhem are hitting the affordable spaces artists need for research and production. Sometimes that space is in their homes, but often it's in rundown warehouses and other marginal spaces.
Vancouver artists displaced recently by billionaire Chip Wilson's development company took the unusual step earlier this month of protesting outside his $73-million Vancouver mansion. Wilson brushed them off in cavalier style, saying the "the world doesn't want enough of your product to pay the rent."
Galleries, particularly the non-profits that often give emerging artists a leg up, are also under intense stress. The Or Gallery, a long-time Vancouver artist-run centre, announced its relocation last week, noting "market speculation has reconfigured the reality of being part of the Vancouver community, a fact that impacts all organizations and individuals living and working here."
Lately, I’ve found myself wondering if Canada is moving away from any type of democracy in art, so that soon only those born into wealth will be able to weather the economic vagaries of creative careers.
If making rent is stressing you out, you may be looking for things to help you relax, perhaps meditation or yoga, or even massage or acupuncture.
Want another idea? Why not check out Maryam Jafri's show, Automatic Negative Thought, at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery.
Jafri points her razor-sharp critique at our collective fixation on wellness and self care – what writer Dorothy Woodend dubs "a big, ripe, over-inflated thing that just begs to be popped."
With the spread of economic dispossession and social fragmentation, Jafri felt prompted to interrogate how changing economic and political realities are inducing anxiety-fuelled narcissism and self-surveillance. It's no little irony that Chip Wilson made his fortune selling yoga pants.
Elsewhere in this issue, Stacey Abramson looks at working-class history via John Paskievich’s photographs at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, a show timed to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
Other articles look at a Regina show, Off-Centre: Queer Contemporary Art in the Prairies, and two artists based in Calgary, Yvonne Mullock and Kent Merriman Jr.
A final story details how a high-level group is working to resurrect plans for a national portrait gallery, a project cancelled by former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.
Looking ahead, we're working on stories about an ambitious new media show about wind, a vast display of puppets from around the world, and an outdoor environmental installation in Calgary.
In the meantime, please feel free to share your thoughts about displacement – or anything else from this issue – in the comment section below.
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Stacey Abramson, Dick Averns, Paul Gessell, Sandee Moore, Dorothy Woodend